Handful of Common Ancestors

Given how dissimilar we humans appear to be from each other, I was surprised to learn that all living humans descend from a small “founding population” of about 5,000 men and 5,000 women! If it didn’t hit you, consider what this means: all 7 billion of us; the blonde and the uh, black hair; the blue eye and the brown eye; white guy and black guy; the pygmy and the Nordic giant all coming from such a small base.

It’s very counter intuitive to believe that we come from such a common stock (at least for me, it was easier to imagine parallel evolution of humans in different places starting with different gene pools to explain the diversity we see).

Until I saw this strip from Hagar the Horrible:

Asian me feels exactly the same as the Viking, Hagar, when the wife does housework. Helping out is never an option for men. The only options we see are:

-         Option 1: Look away (it makes us feel guilty) or

-         Option 2: Persuade her to not do it either.

Why is it that all men world over seem to choose Option 1? And why are all women world over unable to choose Option 2? Across cultures, races, religions? The 5,000 men, 5,000 women theory seems to provide the answer, doesn’t it?

The alternate theory where women call men lazy (and other unprintable stuff) or men call women workaholics just pushes the question a level back: why are all men lazy and all women workaholics? And the 5,000 men, 5,000 women theory would answer that too, so there...